Viva gli antipodi!

Antipodes: any place on Earth is the point on the Earth's surface which is diametrically opposite to it. Russian documentary filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky has made an interesting film on four sets of antipodes: the rural province of Entre Rios in Argentina and Shanghai in China, the Chilean Patagonia and Lake Baikal in Russia (who both look stunning and surprisingly similar for two places that are literally on the other side of each other on the planet), Hawaii and Botswana, and Spain and New Zealand (a memorable part of the film is the presence of a stranded whale in a beach on that country of the southern hemisphere).

Narration free and almost dialogue-free (snippets of talk are heard here and there but they are not subtitled – and even though I'm an Argentine I wasn't even able to pick up most of the chat in Argentina since they spoke fast and in a very regional accent). Surprisingly, and despite the population boom of recent decades, seven of the eight locations chosen for the film seem underpopulated – the exception being the very crowded Shanghai.

Gorgeously filmed, full of great camera-work, it has a number of great shots, but my favorite is a transition from slowly moving lava in Hawaii to what turns out to be the wrinkled skin of an elephant in Botswana. I'm not sure this film is particularly about anything but is very pleasing to watch.